catch up: timeline style

October 27 came and our sweet AnnaClaire blew six candles out on her birthday cake! It's hard to believe that our baby is now six years old! She is always one to come up with quite the gifts, so it was no surprise that she asked for a guitar for her birthday! As you can probably tell from these pictures, this child is extremely spirited and full of LIFE! She always has been and I pray that she always will be. Her laughter is contagious and she always keeps us smiling. She is truly a blessing and although six seems so old, it's such a joy to watch her grow!

On October 28, the crew headed down to Auburn for my sorority's parents weekend! I got to show the whole fam around the school that I absolutely adore, which was so much fun! We went to some of my favorite restaurants, I got to introduce my friends to the whole fam, and the kids even got to experience the football game and rolling Toomers Corner! (It's a tradition here to roll these big oak trees after every win!) It was such a fun weekend!!!







October 31 was of course Halloween, which is not really a big deal in our family, but we always do have fun carving pumpkins and trick or treating! :)

November 6 was Dad's birthday! They had fun celebrating with dinner, cake, and the birthday crown of course!

The end of November brought Thanksgiving, of course! It was so fun having everyone home for the holiday! We LOVE Thanksgiving in our house, and this year was no different. Grandma was in town and she, mom, and the little girls did all of the cooking for us! Football, family, and really good food... it just doesn't get much better than that! :)

On November 25, Grace turned 12! She was the lucky one who had the whole family AND Grandma in town for her big day! We had so much fun celebrating at a favorite restaurant of everyone's! She got a few exciting things for her birthday... her favorite probably being legos! She's definitely our tomboy :) It was fun to celebrate our big girl! Hard to believe that she's TWELVE already!



The weekend after Thanksgiving, we headed to the mountains for our tradition of cutting down the Christmas tree! Cutting down the tree is always fun in our family and this year was no different. There's nothing like piling into a wagon and riding up to the top of the hill, and then walking around for the next while, trying to decide which Christmas tree is perfect for our family room! The day was complete with hot cocoa and horse rides for the littles, and then dinner at a favorite restaurant of ours-- some good ol' home cooking!

The Christmas season was really fun this year, too. Between decorating, putting together puzzles, making snowflakes, taking the train to see the singing Christmas bears downtown, visiting Santa, helping wrap presents, and finding some of the best Christmas lights in the area, we definitely got festive this Christmas and it was SO much fun!

We had a wonderful Christmas eve/day, too! I'm convinced that the bigger the family, the more fun Christmas is! :) It's just fun being together, watching the excitement of little ones open their presents, and just laugh about our goofy family! There's literally never a dull moment in our house...

I think that's about it for now. I don't have pictures from AC's gotcha day, New Years Eve, or Charlie's birthday, but I'll get them and add them eventually! It's definitely been a good couple of months... they have FLOWN by!